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Developed by Steven Chapman and published by The Edge in 1984.
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Sceptre Location: 24:11
Now, here's a game that might send a shudder down the spines of veteran C64 owners! Released back in 1984, Quo Vadis is a scrolling platformer infamous for several reasons.
Hidden deep within a subterranean labyrinth lies a jewelled sceptre, the objective of your quest. The labyrinth is a huge, meandering series of interconnected chambers, passages and corridors where it is all too easy to become lost in the endless depths. Finding the sceptre may seem like an already-impossible task, actually finding your way back to the entrance is made all the more challenging as you won't be able to simply retrace your steps and follow the same route that you used to find the sceptre, so you'll need to map every possible chamber to find the correct way out.
Guarding the labyrinth are hordes of demons, serpents and other evil creatures that do not plan to let you reach the sceptre, let alone escape with it. Your knight can fight back the demons with a ranged attack that hurls a diamond-shaped projectile in the direction that he is currently facing. Moving the joystick moves the knight in the corresponding direction and launches attacks simultaneously, whilst holding down the fire button will anchor the knight in place, allowing you to fire in a specific direction without moving, even when jumping; mastering the ability to jump in one direction whilst firing in another is something that you must learn quickly if you are to survive.
Coming into contact with an enemy (or the fireballs that they cast) will drain the knight's health. There's no visible health bar, although the knight will change colour to indicate things are getting serious. Purple means that health is running low, whilst green means that you are now at a critical state and further hits will result in death. Unfortunately, the knight's weapon can only have a single projectile on-screen at a time, so killing the monsters always proves difficult and you'll find your knight ends on critical health very quickly. It's possible to restore lost health by collecting treasure chests hidden within the labyrinth, but these are few and far between and finding them when you need them is next to impossible.
Floating platforms and ropes allow your knight to cross the caverns and to reach chambers above or below his current position. You will spend a large part of the game navigating your way between platforms and, since the knight jumps a fixed distance, it's vital to time the jumps correctly. It's all to easy to mis-time a jump and to lose considerable time by being forced to climb the tower of platforms yet again. Worse still, there's always the chance that you will land in a pool of lava, ending your adventure somewhat prematurely.
On a technical level, the game is quite impressive considering the year of release. The game map is absolutely enormous and features some nicely drawn artwork, including enormous braziers, candles, chandeliers and decorative armaments. There's no getting away from the fact that the game uses a very limited colour palette, with everything ranging from red to a slightly lighter shade of yellow or orange, yet it's surprisingly atmospheric; there's always the sense that you really are lost inside a massive labyrinth, deep underground.
Although Quo Vadis is one of the most difficult games in the C64's extensive library of games, it remains one of the quirkiest and most interesting. In addition to finding the sceptre, there are also six clues hidden in the game that were part of a competition to win a real gold sceptre rumoured to be worth £35,000. Although players submitted their solutions, none were deemed correct and the sceptre was never won; it's debatable as to whether the prize ever really existed; this isn't surprising considering that £35,000 would have been a staggering sum of money to simply give away, particularly for 1984. As part of my longplay, I've tried to show the locations of each of the clues, although I'm going to make no attempt to solve the actual riddle...
Those of you who played the game back at release and are blessed with sufficient determination may get some satisfaction from playing the game through to completion, but there is little reward for doing so. Punishing difficulty, coupled with the fact that you only have a single life in which to beat it, quickly suppresses the desire for repeated play.
I suppose that, despite all it's fault, Quo Vadis remains one of those titles that will always be remembered by those who played it. For a game that is thirty years old, that is an achievement worthy of recognition.
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Al82_Retro
Add me on Google+: bit.ly/1tPwL1u
Sceptre Location: 24:11
Now, here's a game that might send a shudder down the spines of veteran C64 owners! Released back in 1984, Quo Vadis is a scrolling platformer infamous for several reasons.
Hidden deep within a subterranean labyrinth lies a jewelled sceptre, the objective of your quest. The labyrinth is a huge, meandering series of interconnected chambers, passages and corridors where it is all too easy to become lost in the endless depths. Finding the sceptre may seem like an already-impossible task, actually finding your way back to the entrance is made all the more challenging as you won't be able to simply retrace your steps and follow the same route that you used to find the sceptre, so you'll need to map every possible chamber to find the correct way out.
Guarding the labyrinth are hordes of demons, serpents and other evil creatures that do not plan to let you reach the sceptre, let alone escape with it. Your knight can fight back the demons with a ranged attack that hurls a diamond-shaped projectile in the direction that he is currently facing. Moving the joystick moves the knight in the corresponding direction and launches attacks simultaneously, whilst holding down the fire button will anchor the knight in place, allowing you to fire in a specific direction without moving, even when jumping; mastering the ability to jump in one direction whilst firing in another is something that you must learn quickly if you are to survive.
Coming into contact with an enemy (or the fireballs that they cast) will drain the knight's health. There's no visible health bar, although the knight will change colour to indicate things are getting serious. Purple means that health is running low, whilst green means that you are now at a critical state and further hits will result in death. Unfortunately, the knight's weapon can only have a single projectile on-screen at a time, so killing the monsters always proves difficult and you'll find your knight ends on critical health very quickly. It's possible to restore lost health by collecting treasure chests hidden within the labyrinth, but these are few and far between and finding them when you need them is next to impossible.
Floating platforms and ropes allow your knight to cross the caverns and to reach chambers above or below his current position. You will spend a large part of the game navigating your way between platforms and, since the knight jumps a fixed distance, it's vital to time the jumps correctly. It's all to easy to mis-time a jump and to lose considerable time by being forced to climb the tower of platforms yet again. Worse still, there's always the chance that you will land in a pool of lava, ending your adventure somewhat prematurely.
On a technical level, the game is quite impressive considering the year of release. The game map is absolutely enormous and features some nicely drawn artwork, including enormous braziers, candles, chandeliers and decorative armaments. There's no getting away from the fact that the game uses a very limited colour palette, with everything ranging from red to a slightly lighter shade of yellow or orange, yet it's surprisingly atmospheric; there's always the sense that you really are lost inside a massive labyrinth, deep underground.
Although Quo Vadis is one of the most difficult games in the C64's extensive library of games, it remains one of the quirkiest and most interesting. In addition to finding the sceptre, there are also six clues hidden in the game that were part of a competition to win a real gold sceptre rumoured to be worth £35,000. Although players submitted their solutions, none were deemed correct and the sceptre was never won; it's debatable as to whether the prize ever really existed; this isn't surprising considering that £35,000 would have been a staggering sum of money to simply give away, particularly for 1984. As part of my longplay, I've tried to show the locations of each of the clues, although I'm going to make no attempt to solve the actual riddle...
Those of you who played the game back at release and are blessed with sufficient determination may get some satisfaction from playing the game through to completion, but there is little reward for doing so. Punishing difficulty, coupled with the fact that you only have a single life in which to beat it, quickly suppresses the desire for repeated play.
I suppose that, despite all it's fault, Quo Vadis remains one of those titles that will always be remembered by those who played it. For a game that is thirty years old, that is an achievement worthy of recognition.